Anglican Mainstream

By David Virtue, Virtueonline

In all my years as a journalist, first working on large city dailies, then Christian magazines, a brief stint as an Episcopal Diocesan Managing Editor and now as an Internet Online news writer, whose website annually draws more than 4 million readers from 172 countries, I have never encountered such appalling spin, outrageous lies, pure mendacity and gay-baiting towards a group of godly men and women of orthodox faith as I encountered recently in Jerusalem by the secular press.

It all began with "The Telegraph" newspaper calling the Amman/GAFCON meeting a "shambles". This was followed by an eight-member editorial piece in the "Telegraph" telling Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he should not tolerate this gathering even though they represent the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide – a perfect example of British xenophobia, statism, and paternalism of the worst kind.

It was as though somehow it had slipped the "Telegraph" editors’ minds that the British Empire has been dead for some time and that a Commonwealth exists largely for dog and pony royalty shows where nominal loyalty to the crown still exists as a sort of Royal Soap Opera. The Queen is still presiding over a fragmenting and near defunct Church of England that might, according to a report in the "Telegraph" (ironically), cease to exist in 30 years.

It is also clear to this writer that the Queen herself, the supreme Governor of the Church of England, has singularly failed in her task to call the Archbishop of Canterbury to account for his stewardship on the appalling state of the Anglican Communion over which he presides. His brand of Affirming Catholicism appeals neither to the vast majority of Anglicans, who are solidly Evangelical nor to a small minority of Anglo-Catholics. This makes his much vaunted brilliance a handicap in dealing with ordinary Anglicans who have a simple faith that, funnily enough, they can explain to others. Through them, millions are finding Christ as Savior and Lord. That he has embraced pan-sexuality through the stilted logic and lens of modernity has only compounded the mess the Anglican Communion finds itself in. The British press either eulogizes him as a great mind, though incomprehensible to the masses, or a woolly thinker. Take your pick. Among the worst and most inaccurate headline stories came from the BBC. "Anglican rebels clash with gay march." The story by Robert Pigott was so wildly untrue as to defy all human imagination. There was no clash between GAFCON pilgrims and the Gay Pride Parade people.

They never met. The parade never came anywhere near the Renaissance Hotel. Most of the conferees never read the Jerusalem Post or watched BBC news. It was held downtown under tight security that no one could penetrate. One of the speakers was Ian Baxter, a member of the British LGBT organization who worked in the GAFCON pressroom. He never once, in his speech at the Gay Parade, mentioned the GAFCON conference. He also described himself (an openly homosexual activist) as an Evangelical!

The linkage by the BBC writer was and is tangential, at best, and false, at worst. The few thousand marchers and 303 orthodox bishops never met or "disputed homosexuality" at GAFCON. It was not on the agenda. The only talk about it came in a small group session on the "Family and Marriage" led by Dr. Edith Humphrey.

"But to the evident consternation of the organizers of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), they had travelled all this way to the Christian Holy City only to find the streets taken over by Jerusalem Gay Pride" said Pigott. Most of the GAFCON crowd never knew there was a gay parade and they wouldn’t have cared anyway. They were too busy saying what they did believe and discussing how to transmit it to others. They were not the slightest bit interested in sodomy on the streets of Jerusalem, except perhaps to pray for their salvation.

Riazat Butt of "The Guardian" was the single worst reporter (following in the tradition of her predecessor Stephen Bates) at GAFCON. She has become a shill for British sodomites. She used every press conference to gay bait African primates into either condemning homosexuality (which of course makes them homophobes) or, if they sidestepped her questions, she dissed them for failing to live up to their responsibility for not admitting this small group of aggrieved homogenital activists and their behavior into the church.

Here is one of her classic lines: "GAFCON leaders exhibit an unheavenly silence on homophobia. Clerics at the GAFCON have been slow to condemn violence against gay people. It’s incredible, and unchristian," she said. This is a pack of lies. If you set up the Primates with questions that do not even pertain to what is being talked about, you miss the whole point of what GAFCON is about. "The Guardian" did it repeatedly and often.

Or take another screaming headline (again) in "The Telegraph", this time written by a John Bingham,: "Anglican Church ‘in chaos’ say rebel leaders". So who exactly are the rebels? And who caused the chaos? It certainly was not the GAFCON crowd. They only wanted to uphold what Anglicans have always upheld. Women bishops are a C of E problem and not one that was even raised at GAFCON.

Now The Anglican Church might be "in tatters", but whose fault is that? They say the split is over homosexuality. That again is a half- truth. Certainly Robinson’s’ election was bad, and a very defining moment, but the deeper issues are over the nature of the gospel and Biblical authority. Sodomy is a symptom of the disease. It is not the disease itself!

Finally, this from someone called Theo Hobson, writing for "The Guardian", "The Evangelicals are moving in for the kill. FOCA (Fellowship of Continuing Anglicans) doesn’t want to form a breakaway church; it wants to take over the Anglican Communion, and depose Rowan Williams," he writes.

Nonsense. The brilliance of this conference is that the leaders wrote a Declaration and dumped it in Rowan’ Williams’ lap, asking him where he stood on the issues and what he was going to do about it? They did not talk schism. They only asked that he maintain the same faith they have (and was brought to them by CMS missionaries from England). They want Williams to say what he will do with the American Episcopal Church, which has gone wildly astray. Well, now we know. He told the GAFCON leaders, in no uncertain terms, that they were misguided and he is their leader for better or worse, whether they like it or not!

"It was a serious snub to Dr Rowan Williams, an assertion of power from the Evangelicals," wrote Bingham. Not true. They wrote up a document that almost any Christian over the last 2,000 years could subscribe to. Now they want to know where Williams’ stands! They asked him point blank. So what’s wrong with that?

Hobson again,: "Their desire is to take over the Anglican Communion, and you don’t achieve that by walking away." Truth. They are not trying to take over anything. They want Williams to affirm what has been affirmed for 2000 years and to say so. He hasn’t and won’t. He puts collegiality ahead of gospel truth. That won’t fly with these folk any more. The schism has already been caused by the liberals and pan-sexualists, not the GAFCON crowd. If there is a break, and there might well be one down the road, it is precisely because of the intransigence of the liberals and Affirming Catholics like Williams who want to change what revealed truth is. The African, Asians and Latins aren’t buying it.

Hobson says that Williams has been appeasing the Evangelicals, especially by not inviting Gene Robinson to Lambeth. That was nothing but tokenism to Evangelicals. If Williams was serious about the issue, he would have not have invited all the consecrating bishops, either. But he did, so Evangelicals think Williams is tossing them bones without meat. They are right.

To accuse evangelicals of being "power hungry" is to miss the point of this conference entirely (Hobson was not there). They do not want power at all. What they want is for Williams to say what he believes and uphold what has always been taught about Scripture and sexuality, a prospect they now believe he won’t or can’t do. They are probably right.

Evangelicals have been cutting Williams and his predecessor slack for the last six or more primatial gatherings. Every time a new document or paper comes out saying that he will uphold this or that, they are disappointed and let down because the Episcopal Church goes ahead and does whatever it likes – including the most egregious lie of all. Frank Griswold said he would never ordain a homosexual when he was in London. Three weeks later he did exactly that. Evangelicals have had enough and who can blame them? The post-colonial mentality of Williams and the Church of England hierarchs, like Bishop N. T. Wright, are appalling examples of xenophobia. The vast majority of the Anglican Communion who are Black, under 30 and female, will no longer take it. They are done. Their leaders have tolerated the patronizing tones of Williams long enough. They are also fed up with the liberal lead American House of Bishops and its presiding oceanographer Katharine Jefferts Schori.

If a split is ever formalized, it will be entirely the fault of Western Liberals and pan-sexualists, but then you can be sure the "Telegraph," "the Guardian", the BBC and "The Times" will find ways to make it look like the Africans are a bunch of theological troglodytes who have just stepped out of the bush and are one step away from wearing loin cloths. Ironically, the documents they will bear in their hands will look strangely familiar, it will be the Bible in one hand and a Ph.D. earned at Oxford or Cambridge in the other.

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